Section 8: Green jobs initiative
Section 8. There is hereby established and placed within the center an initiative to be known as the green jobs initiative. Said initiative shall award grants to the commonwealth's public institutions of higher education as defined in section 5 of chapter 15A, municipally-owned institutions of higher education and vocational technical schools, as established in sections 14 and 15 of chapter 74 or any vocational-technical school that meets the programmatic requirements established by the department of elementary and secondary education, to facilitate workforce development efforts and train and retain students in clean energy industries. The grants shall include matching grants to such public institutions of higher education, municipally-owned institutions of higher education, public elementary and secondary schools and such vocational technical schools for the development of small-scale renewable clean energy generating sources, energy storage technologies, energy efficiency innovations and energy transmission and distribution innovations including, but not limited to: (i) photovoltaic installations; (ii) wind energy; (iii) ocean thermal, wave or tidal energy; (iv) fuel cells; (v) hydrogen produced by non-fossil fuel sources and methods; (vi) landfill gas; (vii) natural flowing water and hydroelectric; (viii) low-emission advanced biomass power conversion technologies using biomass fuels including, but not limited to, agricultural or food wastes; (ix) renewable biogas, biodiesel or organic refuse-derived fuel; (x) geothermal energy, including networked geothermal and deep geothermal energy; and (xi) fusion energy; provided, however, that the matching grants shall not be awarded for such development if it includes as sources coal, oil or natural gas resources other than the sources enumerated here or nuclear power other than fusion energy. The center shall assist said public institutions of higher education as defined in this section, public elementary and secondary schools and the commonwealth's vocational technical schools as defined in this section in developing a curriculum for clean energy and energy efficiency, and shall assist students seeking employment in the clean energy sector.